Srinagar, May 21 -- Kashmir is a place where stillness grows tall. The wind carries snow in its sleeves and folds valleys into stories. Mountains keep their secrets under white veils.

And then in spring, something delicate stirs underfoot. Something old, purple, and breathing.

Rhododendron ponticum, they call it. But names, like fences, rarely matter in the wild.

Here, it's less a flower and more a fortitude. It bursts violet against the endless green.

The petals seem lit from within, as if the plant remembers a sun from another country. And perhaps it does.

It is native to faraway lands. Portugal's hills, the ancient slopes of the Caucasus. But it has found something familiar in the Kashmiri chill.

It doesn't shout. It doesn't domi...